Posted on 08/19/2009 1:39:56 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
President Obama couldn't have been more right: The post office is struggling, and for good reason.
While defending his government-funded health insurance option a week ago - a controversial idea that, at this writing, he appears to be willing to ditch - he said private insurers shouldn't worry about competing with the government.
He said it is the U.S. Postal Service, not FedEx and UPS, that is struggling.
To be sure, our quasi-government postal operation is on track to lose $7 billion this year.
Why? In the Internet era, fewer people are mailing things. They're mailing even less during a deep recession.
But here are the real challenges our post office faces: regulations, mandates and bureaucratic inertia that make it incapable of adjusting to market conditions.
Postmaster General John Potter is trying to correct that. He said Congress needs to allow the post office to "think outside the mailbox" - to consider new activities that could generate new revenue.
The Italian post office allows customers to do their banking. Post offices in other countries allow customers to purchase insurance. The Australian postal system allows customers to renew their driver's licenses.
Heck, we're already waiting in long lines. Why not wait for two or three things at once?
Besides, our postal system has 36,000 locations across America - it generates massive foot traffic. Surely, it could generate new dough by offering new services and products that consumers want.
But, since quasi-government organizations move at a snail's pace, if at all, that may take a while.
If you want an example of someone who really did think outside the mailbox, visit the FedEx Web site.
Fred Smith, the company's founder, had a vision to do something the post office wasn't able to do: deliver small packages fast. In 1971, he invested money he inherited - along with venture capital he was able to raise - to buy a used-aircraft company in Little Rock, Ark.
He began using the aircraft to provide overnight delivery services for envelopes and small packages shipped within the United States.
He ran into all kinds of challenges and obstacles. He and his team obviously were successful at resolving them. They pushed advances in computer technology to drive efficiency. Their creativity and innovation ultimately changed the world.
Needless to say, FedEx has become so innovative and efficient, we take for granted that the package we drop off today will arrive virtually anywhere in America by noon tomorrow.
In fact, so reliable is FedEx, our postal system signed a contract with the company to deliver its own express packages all over America - something the post office could never do on its own.
Which brings us back to Obama's telling comment comparing public and private organizations.
It is true that our health care system needs some reforming and our government has an important role in nudging the reform along.
But do we really want reforms that will lead to a post office-style bureaucracy and the constant meddling of big-talking politicians?
In the era of Google and innovation and massive new efficiencies, do we really want a government-directed system that, by its very nature, will quell innovation and efficiency?
Or do we want reform that will move us more toward the energetic FedEx model?
Most agree that lawmakers must address the big challenges - there are creative ways to deal with portability, pre-existing conditions, the uninsured, etc. - but they must establish new guidelines without taking away more of our freedom.
Unleashing private-sector creativity and innovation is the only way we can drive the improvements our health care system so badly needs.
Is there anyone on the planet who thinks the government can manage one-seventh of the U.S. economy better than the private sector?
If you do, let me ask you this: If you needed to ship a precious personal item halfway across the world, whom would you entrust it to?
The post office or FedEx?
The health care debate isn't much more complicated than that.
Big deal. Fed-Ex couldn't make daily deliveries to every address in the nation either. That's not their specialty and neither is overnight delivery the specialty of the USPS. The writer knows little about the daily grind of the postal service. Contrary to common misconception, there is efficiency and innovation in the USPS, but most of it comes from the dedication of the individual carriers and clerks who take a proprietary interest in serving their customers in the most efficient manner.
I deliver FedEx and UPS packages every day on my mail routes. THey back up to the dock and unload....
Apparently you have been on the wrong side of the counter...
I leave our local post office with a big PO almost every time I visit it...
Lets see...
Take down the clocks (which were set 5 minutes fast for early closure) so people will not realize how long they have been standing in the one line of a four line office while you see the employees peeking out from behind the protective wall to see their ‘well served’ customers.
Give me a break...
How many postal employees have been laid off during this downturn...? I have heard that a lot have in private firms...
This entailed the most massive improvement in postal productivity in world history.
What USPS is suffering from now is a loss of mail volume due to a business downturn. At the same time the fixed cost operations are not reduced.
Potter will get through this one once he realizes he has to reorient rural delivery service to a 1000 facility base of head-out offices while closing 28,000 superfluous post offices.
He's taking baby steps. Volumes won't recover vast enough to save him.
The people you see peeking out at you are probably surprised that the screen-line behind the window service area has been removed!
Gad!
The window clerks are the tip of the iceberg. Most of the real work of postal clerks occurs between7pm and 7am. Parcels and letters do not travel on their own to your mailbox. I wish the clocks in the general mail facility I worked at would have run five minutes slow at 4 AM to give us a few extra minbutes to make the dispatch. Every dispatch was a workout and a race against time.
So what you are saying is....if Fed Ex had to provide “universal service” it would be 7 billion in the hole also? Highly doubt it..But it doesn’t give much credence to Obama’s claim for universal health care. The Postal Service is one huge “red tape” gov’t run mess. Since when are carriers and clerks allowed to be innovative at the Post Office? Yeah, it is a daily grind...of layer after layer of useless, costly Union and management BS. The best thing for the PO and it’s employees would be to go totally private so the PO can quickly react to market changes and economic changes.
And you also have a Union that pushes for liberal anti-business Democrats at every election! And when Dems get elected and go after corporate America like they say they will, which is the largest customer of the PO, and revenue falls, you have the Union acting like they have nothing to do with the PO’s problems. Amazing.
Management is the federal government. The workforce is nearly fully unionized. There's a reason for that.
That's another reason why you don't see Obama and his crowd of slackers using postal unions to peddle their BS ~
There's not a extremely broad context for innovation, but I've seen clerks and carriers care about doing their job in the best way and find ways to do their job more efficiently in the narrow context. Some of the people I knew could not have done their jobs on time had they not possessed an intelligent mindset and a devotion to doing their job correctly. Real life does not always correspond to broad ideologically based stereotype.
“That’s another reason why you don’t see Obama and his crowd of slackers using postal unions to peddle their BS “
You are kidding right? Read a copy of any Postal Record union mag. They most certainly are being used by Obama to push his agenda. The NALC is a major force on Capital Hill...and highly supportive of The One.
Let the Post Offices sell national football lottery tickets.
“Comments?”
Yes, let’s privatize the USPS. Abolish the law that forbids access to people’s mailbox. Allow private carriers of mail.
When I was a postal worker in the Reagan years and a member of the APWU, the newspaper from the union president, Comrade Moe Biller, was interesting as a time capsule into 1930s unionism. I always got a fair amount of amusement from the paper, and then I'd go out and vote for Reagan and other Republicans.
I’m not saying that postal employees are the major problem with the PO. Most work their arses off...but I have seen very little leeway granted by management for clerks or carriers to be innovative. In fact, if you are too innovative, you end up with a letter of warning.
Booklets and the spewings of the small union leadership crowd are not all that persuasive or useful anyway.
Obama has turned to SEUI for muscle.
“Not all the employees in a post office are authorized to work window service.”
A private (and non-overly unionized) company would allow employees to walk and chew gum at the same time. they would train them to be flexible or fire them if they cant hack it. If there are such inefficiencies, and I’m sure there are, they would be gone quickly in a market environment. Another reason why we should privatize USPS.
Your local grocery store has folks who run cash registers and others who stock. I suggest you take your story to them ~ because you need a good laughing at.
You're right on the money. It's just that I have heard so much bashing of the ordinary postal workers around here, many of whom are hard-working ex-military and/or conservatives, that I'm sensitive about the subject.
” the people I knew could not have done their jobs on time had they not possessed an intelligent mindset and a devotion to doing their job correctly.”
Good people work in every workplace in America. The problem is not the workforce per se, but the system and the way the organization is set up and run. Deming proved as much in his work on Total Quality management in private factories. Govt bureaucracies and union-run shops are not set up to maximize efficiency. When its not the organization’s mission, its not the end result.
Funny, but when the lines get too long at the grocery store or Home Depot, they magically open up more lines. Wow, some people can acutally do more than 1 thing! And I worked at a supermarket way back when - been there, done that - the laugh is on you.
The USPS is a losing org because no matter how inefficient, they have taxpeyer funding so they don’t have to actually compete to survive. That breeds inefficiancy, waste, cronyism, and government largesse. FedEx is successful because it is in competition with UPS. DHL was/is trying to get a foohold but couldn’t beat the USPS level of sloggery so they will be left in the dust. Obammy wants the heathcrae system to be like the Post Office, not like FedEx and UPS. The stupidity of his remark and repeating it seems to zip right over the head of media fifth column obakneepad sycophants.
In any case, you can't take a letter carrier and have him take over a window clerk's job. Both jobs require a great deal of training, AND, for the most part, the workhours are considerably different.
The innovation I saw was more prevalent in tasks where the employee could enjoy a quasi-autonomy and develop a proprietary attitude to their job. The fault is in the nature of the system, not of the hired help who are of the same general cross-section of good and bad that is found everywhere.
Early on, Fred went to the city and airport "leaders" and begged for more ramp space which he would gladly pay for. He also presented a plan to add another runway in the future.
The same PTB told him in no uncertain words - no.
Fred then picked up all his marbles and moved to Memphis.
The rest is history. The airport now has another runway, FEDEX is a case study in MBA Programs on how local politicians can screw up brilliant business plans, and to this day we locals still talk about "we coulda had FEDEX."
You are correct. But at the PO there are different Unions for carriers, clerks and mail handlers. A carrier cannot work the window for example. A clerk cannot carry mail. Union “rules” will not allow it because you are not allowed to cross crafts. The rules and regulations at the PO would make employees in a private company roll with laughter.
700+ BILLION dollar slush fund for Obama and we’re worried about whether the post office is losing 1/100 that amount?
The USPS is Constitutionally authorized, the slush fund ain’t. If Obama wants to compare notes....
The fellows who run the paint mix machines do not come up front and run cash registers. The cashiers don't go back and run the forklifts. The forklift operators don't tote buckets of paint around and run the mixers.
There is a division of labor in every industry and people are accountable for their part of it.
Cash register operations are particularly sensitive.
No, the USPS does not receive taxpayer funding.
wow, you are trying REAL hard not to get the point - all I am trying to point out is the obvious that an organization focussed on efficiency and customer service would run things more flexibly than USPS does. You have a vested interest in USPS status quo? Love snail-pace govt bureaucracies? Think the unions know all? Whatever it is ... it matters not. monopolies lack imagination. If you dont think Postal Service can be run better, then so do you.
” But at the PO there are different Unions for carriers, clerks and mail handlers. A carrier cannot work the window for example. A clerk cannot carry mail. Union “rules” will not allow it because you are not allowed to cross crafts.”
3 unions? Something I didnt know.
” The rules and regulations at the PO would make employees in a private company roll with laughter.”
Indeed. Thx for making my point.
Very true. If the USPS is so rotten and FedEx the model of perfect efficiency, why is FedEx in such partnership withj the evil and wasteful USPS?
“The fault is in the nature of the system”
BINGO. That ‘system’ is a non-competitive monopoly. Socialist and monopoly organizations are inherently inefficient.
For more on how good dedicated people can end up working in a mediocre system with huge waste, see our monopoly public school system.
To start with carriers begin work at about 5 AM. They go in and put up mail in their cases that's been sorted to them earlier.
They hit the street, deliver the mail, and having completed 8 hours of work they go home.
Window clerks start work at roughly 8 AM although in some places where window service starts earlier, they may start early. They come to work. Check out their cashdrawer. Do a quick run through their accountable stock (stamps, money order blanks), then open for business. They work through the day, then close out their cash drawer, put away their accountable stock, then close up and go home.
Distribution clerks come to work about the same time the window clerks are going home, and long after the carriers have gone home. They work into the night in large mail processing centers.
The main crafts ~ window clerks, distribution clerks, and carriers ~ have different work schedules, and those schedules are sufficiently different for the overwhelming majority of postal employees that cross craft work is pretty much out of the question ~
Handling accountable stock also leads to some serious stumbling blocks although we have had in the past a position called "distribution/window clerk" but their use was limited to major cities where a large MPC with a large finance unit was located. Postal modernization that has involved constructing large MPCs outside of city centers has pretty much antiquated that position.
These people are all represented by the SAME UNION.
Most of the people seen wandering about are probably supervisors of some sort or the other. They are doing their jobs.
“why is FedEx in such partnership withj the evil and wasteful USPS? “
Duh, who’s paying the money to whom? its for the $$$
Yep. The USPS isn’t in the airplane business, so FedEx is flying USPS stuff, and we go places they won’t. But we get all the grief.
The USPS does an amazing job, all things considered.
No, they don't make people in private industry laugh. In fact, they come in for instruction regarding what those rules mean so that they can enter their mail at presort or bulk rates.
What makes postal employees laugh is the private sector guy who thinks he can run the post office even though he isn't smart enough to operate his postage meter.
Yep, each Union is trying to protect their own. If a carrier was allowed to work the window, it might prove that they don’t need as many window clerks, which would mean less employees in the clerk craft, which would mean less money for the APWU, the clerks Union. NALC is the carrier Union. Etc. etc...you get the point.
What you just did, differentiating between a bad system and the good people who have to work in that bad system, is a nuance that’s not often recognized. And I think people who do not recognize that difference as you have sometimes do not fully understand the nature of the problem and the remedies.
You are in la la land. Do you work for the USPS? Obviously you don’t. Tell me where carriers start at 5 am? I’d like a transfer. Have you heard of the NALC? How about APWU? Not the same Unions and you are NOT allowed to cross crafts, unless you want a grievance filed by one of the Unions. Are you management? Stunning ignorance on display.
APWU/NALC are both AFL-CIO affiliates and they work in concert although there are some minor differences in their focus of interest ~ but here’s an example ~ http://www.apwu.org/news/webart/2008/webart-0808-oig-suit-080122.htm
Concerning crossing clerk craft to case mail, or crossing carrier craft lines to put up a case, that'd most likely entail moving from one building to another in most possible situations.
Some of you guys working in the little hometown NCD offices probably have an issue, but not in major post offices. Frankly, where it's even possible to cross crafts I'd suggest that the facility is simply not economically justified. It's among those 28,000 buildings that need to be closed and consolidated.
There are a lot of AFL-CIO affiliates. Do they have the same contracts? Do they bargain together? Are they allowed to do each others jobs? Do they have the same work rules? Do they represent each other in contract negotiations? Of course not! You are a fool if you think that makes them all ONE UNION! Seriously, are you a postmaster or just horribly uninformed?
“As far as crossing crafts, and the unions filing grievances, I would imagine that if you’d walk up to a window clerk’s work station and open his cash drawer and start fiddling around you’d find Postal Inspectors dropping down around you from the lookouts.
Concerning crossing clerk craft to case mail, or crossing carrier craft lines to put up a case, that’d most likely entail moving from one building to another in most possible situations.
Some of you guys working in the little hometown NCD offices probably have an issue, but not in major post offices. Frankly, where it’s even possible to cross crafts I’d suggest that the facility is simply not economically justified. It’s among those 28,000 buildings that need to be closed and consolidated.”
You are a genuine, certified loon!
It's one big ol' incestuous crowd except for two issues ~ night differential and accountable stock.
They also work, for the most part, at different times of day.
Your major MPCs without finance or carrier delivery units have no problem with folks crossing craft. That right there is OVER HALF of the work force.
And when it comes to window clerks, who do work in the daytime, the overriding problem is accountability for cash and stock ~
Folks who imagine you can just drop a carrier into a window clerk's job haven't thought through the problem long enough.
Like I said, genuine certifiable loon. Good thing you work at the PO, probably couldn’t get employed anywhere else. You can’t even back up your claims, you just keep moving the bar. It’s no wonder the PO gets a bad rap. WOW...now go back to your hole in never never land.
I agree—I have a walking route and can burn off 7-10 lbs on a hot summer day. Lots of conservatives among the ranks at my station...FR has its share of USPS bashers, but I’m not offended.
You call it a ‘jiffy line,’ I call it a Disney Chain.
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